The Property Ticker Grainger, Merlin, Landsec and Shurgard updates; AI firms plug into UK offices as leasing accelerates; ICG buys £200m UK industrial portfolio; UK CRE lending hits 10Y high..and more

Research evidence excerpt

The Property Ticker Grainger, Merlin, Landsec and Shurgard updates; AI firms plug into UK offices as leasing accelerates; ICG buys £200m UK industrial portfolio; UK CRE lending hits 10Y high..and more

ming £105m of Aviva debt and settling

£85.4m of intercompany loans; Equites said the deal is a decisive capital-recycling step

that releases about £95.5m of net cash proceeds to reinvest into its higher-yielding South

African logistics development pipeline, while reducing LTV and supporting long-term

distributable earnings growth, against a backdrop of a quieter Q1 for UK industrial/

logistics investment volumes (£913m vs £3.8bn at end-2024), with ICG advised by

Newmark and Equites by ACRE Capital Real Estate. (Source: CoStar)

• UK commercial real estate lending hits 10-year high: New lending for United

Kingdom commercial real estate rose 29% in 2025 to reach the highest level in a decade,

according to a closely watched survey by Bayes Business School. Researchers said about

£52.7 billion in new loans were issued, with activity driven by non-bank lenders and

United Kingdom banks. Non-bank lending increased 51% while bank financing rose

29% on an annual basis. What Bayes described as a “sluggish market” for new

construction projects saw lenders competing on price to protect market share. Around

60% of lending involved refinancing. (Source: CoStar)

• Online retail and warehouse construction post-pandemic rebalancing in UK

logistics: Online retail penetration and warehouse construction have historically moved

in tandem, reflecting e-commerce’s structural need for modern logistics space. Both rose

steadily from 2012–2019, then surged in 2020–2021 amid the pandemic; as online sales

normalised post-lockdowns, construction lagged and only corrected materially in 2023,